Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 27, 1995 TAG: 9508250135
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Unfortunately, the widespread public perception is that most reporters will do anything for a story - including making one up.
This past week, all of us in the profession got tarred again when ABC News admitted a high-profile story on the newsmagazine program "Day One" last year "should not have reported that Philip Morris and Reynolds [tobacco companies] add significant amounts of nicotine" to the cigarettes they sell.
The thrust of the story had been that the companies inject additional nicotine to make cigarette smoking even more addictive than it would be naturally.
This past week, ABC said, "Oops! Sorry. We goofed." The network settled out of court a $10 billion libel suit over the allegation and apologized - repeatedly - over the air for "a mistake that was not deliberate."
Let's be clear that journalists - at least most of us - are not devils. We're human beings. And we do make mistakes. Honest ones. Ethical journalists admit those mistakes and try to correct them.
But even among journalists, few of us are going to believe that an operation like ABC News, which certainly knew the potential for a lawsuit as it prepared that story and undoubtedly had the story reviewed by numerous editors and lawyers before airing, just "made a mistake" in this case.
The conclusion that this story involved a serious ethical lapse seems unavoidable.
Either the network's fact-checking and corroboration were so sloppy as to constitute an ethical error, or somebody decided that even though there was little, if any, evidence to substantiate the charge, the network would air it anyway. The latter amounts to a lie - and not a little white one, either - that is an even more obvious ethical error than laxity.
Even the best-intentioned of journalists may tend to think of businesses - particularly huge corporations such as Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds whose profiteering on drug addiction we may consider unethical in itself - as impervious to damage from our stories.
Obviously that is not true.
This story is reminiscent, of course, of another TV network newsmagazine story in which an incendiary device was used to set a pickup truck on fire in a staged crash to "prove" that the truck's gas tank was dangerous.
Besides the damage that kind of journalism does to the subjects of the stories, it harms every consumer of news and tarnishes the reputation of every journalist as well.
Those who depend on the news for facts and truth - two related but distinct commodities - are damaged because they will have to question similar news reports in the future. The next time a reporter comes up with a genuine scandal in the tobacco or automobile industries, readers or viewers understandably may be skeptical.
And those of us who make a living trying to bring you the news are damaged because our reputations inevitably get tied up in a gigantic - if mythical - monster known simply as "the media." In it, individual journalists become faceless sprockets in an easily vilified machine that many Americans distrust as much as they do big government, big business and big labor.
I've been a journalist for a quarter of a century. Overwhelmingly, the people I've worked with have been dedicated to serving the public. They are committed to getting the facts straight. Almost all are compassionate, principled, ethical people.
But a few are not. And they taint us all.
The belief that reporters will do anything for a story has a long and colorful history.
For instance, a 60-year-old classic newspaper movie, "The Front Page," includes a scene in which a group of reporters witnesses the capture of an escaped death-row inmate in a press room near the prison. As the groggy inmate emerges from a roll-top desk, each reporter dictates a story to his newspaper on the capture. One reports a peaceful apprehension of the befuddled inmate - the accurate picture. Another reports guns blazing, another reports a desperate struggle, another reports a chase.
Though the reports of the fictional journalists were lies, there is some "truth" in the scenario in that every person sees a slightly different story in every event.
That's why some people can attend a meeting and the next day wonder if the reporter who wrote the newspaper account was at the same meeting.
Most often the differences lie not in deception but in the fact that the participants were looking for different things when they went in.
But such disputes are over nuance, usually, rather than facts. They don't involve a deliberate deception of the reader.
Journalists everywhere - with notable exceptions of such rags as the National Enquirer and its television equivalents - have rigorous codes of ethics to which they are required to submit.
Among other things:
We pledge to make every reasonable effort to get the facts straight before writing a story. We pledge to do everything we can to avoid even the appearance of publishing stories in exchange for favors or gifts or advertising dollars. We pledge to be sensitive to the feelings of victims of crime or disaster when covering such events. We pledge not to make stories up because the truth wasn't interesting or exciting enough.
Fortunately for those of us who are journalists, a lot of you who say you are suspicious of our motives and our product still buy the newspaper and watch the television and listen to the radio.
I suspect that means you have a higher level of trust in us than you let on, but I'm sorry ABC News gave you another reason to be suspicious.
So we'll start again today, as we must every day, attempting to build and fortify your confidence in our trustworthiness. Let us know how we're doing.
Cody Lowe reports on issues of religion and ethics. Monday is the deadline for responding to last week's column on whether or not Atlanta pastor Charles Stanley should be allowed to keep his pulpit if his wife divorces him. Send e-mail to roatimesinfi.net, or conventional mail to The Back Pew, The Roanoke Times, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010.
by CNB